The movie begins in the past, when Smagol, played by Andy Serkis, first comes into possession of the One Ring of power, twisting and transforming him into the tragic, devious Gollum, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam's (Sean Astin) guide to Mordor. From there, Jackson leads the audience through the intimate inner struggles of the film's protagonists (of which there are many) to epic battles for the fate of humanity that rival (or echo) the relentless brutality of Saving Private Ryan or German director Josef Vilsmeier's 1993 Stalingrad .

Unlike The Two Towers, the theatrical release of which had a certain narrative choppiness when moving back and forth between Frodo's journey and the defense of Helm's Deep, Return flows easily between two stories -- Frodo, Sam and Gollum in Mordor and the battle for humanity and Aragorn's (Viggo Mortensen) ascension to the throne. Jackson makes it work because he takes the time to dwell on the personal choices faced by individuals under dire circumstances. Although he risks slowing the film's pace, Jackson doesn't,  and successfully interjects his battle scenes and conflicts with truly human moments of doubt and resolve. The scene where the wizard Gandalf, played eloquently by Ian McKellen, explains the afterlife to the hobbit Pippin (Billy Boyd) as hordes of orcs and trolls batter the human city's inner walls is stirring in its glimmer of hope in the face of adversity.  

If Return has one narrative weakness, it's in the romance department. Aragorn's relationship with the elven Princess Arwen (Liv Tyler) is kind of put on the back-burner in Return despite being beautifully established in Fellowship and playing a crucial role in Aragorn's emotional survival in Towers.  At one point, Arwen's father Lord Elrond (Hugo Weaving) tells Aragorn that his daughter is dying and her fate depends on the One Ring's destruction. This may not have been in J.R.R. Tolkien's original books, but you would think it would have been mentioned a little earlier in the film version's proceedings. It's not as if they didn't have plenty of time on any of the extended edition DVDs. The relationship between Faramir (David Wenham) and Eowyn (Miranda Otto), an integral part to the end of the Tolkein's work gets, quite literally, a nod in the film version.

Overall the film's special effects are impressive with computer-generated beasties of all shapes and sizes pummeling, slicing  and crushing real life human actors (and their CGI counterparts) in a very realistic manner. The battle for Pelennor Fields, where the combined forces of humanity and their spectral allies protect Minas Tirith, the capitol of Gondor, from the armies of Mordor is simply awesome filmmaking that leaves the viewer breathless in its immensity.

That computer/actor-generated wonder Gollum returns, and the scenes between he, Frodo and Sam take on a darker tone as they struggle to cross the fiery lands of the enemy Sauron and cast the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. They are, however, nonetheless more lively and engaging than in Towers. The stakes in this film are higher, and a four-way relationship between the hobbits, Gollum and the Ring has emerged that is so petty, manipulative and stocked with paranoia and desire, that it makes even the most dysfunctional marriage on Ricki Lake look healthy.  

Still there are some dodgy moments. The calling forth of a "ghost" army by Aragorn is creepy enough, and harks back to Jackson's 1996 Michael J. Fox comic-horror movie The Frighteners. But it doesn't sustain the cool believability captured by the skeletal buccaneers in this year's Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl. And the fiery death plunge of one human character from a city's battlements does err on the side of Warner Bros. cartoon kookiness (think Wile E. Coyote).

That said, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King still recalls the kind of epic, marathon filmmaking last done by the likes of Cecil B. DeMille or David Lean. While it can be argued that the New Zealand-based Jackson is heir to the throne of Lucas and Spielberg, his attention to detail, respect for character and the original property has guided his hand, as well as those of his fellow screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philipa Boyens, in ways lost on his progenitors.

Spielberg strips away the narrative complexity of a novel to create a popular consumer product. The entertaining Jurassic Park and cringingly awful The Color Purple stand as easy examples of this violation. Jackson's trilogy demands the viewer pay attention to the original books' details he and his team have brought to life and the rewards are immeasurable. Unlike Lucas, whose so-far appallingly bad Star Wars prequels drown in a sea of pomposity and faux complexity, Jackson's vision of Middle Earth is far more real than that galaxy so far, far away could ever be.

In 1998, when the makers of the disastrous U.S. version of Godzilla began to duke it out online with the creative team behind Star Wars: The Phantom Menace -- one website read Story Does Matter, a play on Godzilla's teaser poster at the time -- the folks at Lucasfilms led us to believe the first prequel was going to be a tale worth the telling, a story that didn't need visual effects to fill its huge, gaping plot holes. I hope Lucas and company have bought tickets to Return , because the king of fantasy genre filmmaking is dead -- or worse, has no clothes -- and Peter Jackson has stolen the crown. Long live the King .